At Home in the World
by fignae
Summary: After leaving the greenhouse with its mythos and violence, Mireille and Kirika have given up assassination and are attempting to live anew. Post-series fanfiction that focuses on Mireille's perceptions on a certain significant day. (Mireille x Kirika)
1. Questions

_Originally written for the Yuletide New Year's Resolution 2005 challenge, edited later on. Thanks to early readers for their suggestions. I am always looking for new opinions, though, so feel free to email me or leave feedback.  
_

_Disclaimer: Noir does not belong to me. This is merely a work of humble fanfiction._

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**CHAPTER ONE  
**

_**Questions**_

Mireille doesn't know how they got here.

Her memories are unambiguous. She remembers evading the group of men, then driving down the road, crossing the border back into Paris. They decided to remain in her old apartment for a few weeks. She was worried over Kirika's wounds, which healed all right in the end. There have been no sign of the Soldats since they left the Manor.

It's what came after that she fails to understand.

The dearth of attackers was the surest sign the trials of Noir were truly over, her reasoning went, with a grimace at the irony of having to rely on the Soldats for anything at all. Well, she hoped their trail was lost. And if the organization was still keeping tabs, she supposed they would be safe as long as they showed no interest in actually being Noir.

Even so, they left their lodgings, driving out of the neighbourhood with their meagre belongings spilling from the boot like any other couple. _They would be two against the world,_ she said to Breffort before embarking on her mission.

But that was idealistic talk, Mireille admits, surveying her image in their largest mirror, situated in the spacious bathroom. Crooking an arm against her waist, she watches herself smile. It is a natural smile, at any rate, and crinkles the dim shadows that have been appearing under her eyes. She narrows her gaze critically. Her tan suit and skirt appear well-pressed. The pink blouse peeking out from beneath the collar adds a soft touch to what could have been a harsh facade.

No, she hasn't changed; it's not that. Mireille sighs, absently returning Kirika's toothbrush to the new mug beside her own. It's just that they should be happier.

After all, the little ground-level apartment they rented has met their needs just fine. The small size made for coziness, she remarked when they first found it. She strides across the room to retrieve her keys from the tabletop, purse slung across an arm, then remembers the plant and returns to the window.

She puzzles over the matter for a moment as she tips a few drops of water into the pot. Yes, the new surroundings have suited them very well. Kirika is displaying unexpected skill at interior decoration. They gain little knick-knacks every day that manage to blend with the surroundings and exude the kind of style Mireille favours.

Hooking the keys on her index finger, she makes her way to the door, undoing the bolt and easing it open with a light creak. She sweeps her hair back; steps into the freer air.

A cool breeze grazes her cheek at once, an autumn wind that suggests the pallor of winter.

Mireille falls into an even pace, ignoring the parked car by the curb. The brisk walk to the teahouse should do her good, wake her up before she gets there. There should be a fair amount of work today: she's been experimenting with different varieties of tea and is thinking of changing the supplier for their noodles. Customers seem to be enjoying the homely, Japanese feel of the place so far. As for Mireille herself, she can never enter the establishment without glancing at a painting just beyond the entrance, the first watercolour Kirika made since they settled down in Paris.

She presented it to Mireille, a shy smile glowing on her face, and when Mireille saw the words written at the backshe hadn't known what to say or do, so she looked her gratitude, and Kirika understood. But that was then, that was before.

She thinks there's something new in Kirika's eyes of late.

Like the last time they went out for a walk. She isn't sure what really happened then.

------

"Then we'll go to the park in the morning. You like the park, don't you?" 

"Mmm." Kirika was watching her carefully. Mireille averted her gaze, stamping out the brief flare of resentment that arose.

"I used to like feeding the ducks. But there seem to be fewer and fewer each year." She poured herself some tea.

"Want some?" Kirika shook her head.

"Maybe it's just my imagination." She pressed on the faintest of smiles. "Sometimes we see things that aren't really there, you know."

Mireille doesn't daydream much. And they usually don't involve ducks, so she doesn't know what made her add, "The ducks could still be there although we can't see them. I think there's something funny about that."

"Mireiyu."

Mireille put the cup to her lips. "Hmm?"

"I really do like the park. But that is because you're there with me."

Mireille narrowed her eyes, but not in time to hide the surprise widening her pupils. "Well. I..."

She stood, turned. "I..."

"Let's go, Kirika."

They proceeded to the park in silence, passing the river on the way. Mireille glanced over. They kept pace comfortably with each other; they always did. If only everything else were this effortless.

She started. Her footsteps faltered. Kirika had approached in her distraction and slipped warm fingers into her palm.

------

Mireille closes her hand, watching her fingers as they curl inwards. 

Really, Kirika can be very sweet.

But there are the little maddening things about her too. She startles Mireille quite frequently with her quiet movements. There are days she seems worried but remains stubbornly silent till she has come up with some conclusion of her own. She leaves her clothes in haphazard fashion around the house, yet irons their laundry with meticulous precision.

Mireille sort of likes picking up after her anyway.

An old woman toting a cane hobbles past. Mireille looks up at the friendly hailing of the local paper-boy. She smiles, waves. She takes this route every day, usually with Kirika. But Kirika has taken to leaving the house early these days; perhaps there is extra work to be done, what with the business picking up.

It could be something else, though, one of those things that go unspoken between them. More likely it's a mood that will pass, a phase everyone goes through once in a while. One or two days of awkwardness will happen in any relationship now and then, especially living in such close quarters as they are. Perhaps that stray idea of taking a short break will be helpful. They have left each other a few times already, and the relationship seems to have stabilized afterwards. It would merely mean one week, two, of not seeing Kirika's face.

Or it might be her face Kirika shouldn't see. The way she acts at times, Mireille is almost convinced she thinks too much of her. Other times Kirika looks at her like she's another person entirely. And then she asks one question too many, or tags along behind with watchful, narrowed eyes, like Mireille can't take care of herself. When questioned, she doesn't respond, just looks sad, and Mireille has about given up. She has her suspicions, and nearly went to cut her hair once but stopped herself.

Mireille tucks a blonde lock behind her ear. That would be asking too much of her. She is not a child in a tumultuous romance.

Before she can have further thoughts, her destination swims into view across the busy thoroughfare. The sights and sounds of the morning traffic seep through her awareness. Strollers, devoted old gentlemen and ladies on their way to church or coffee, younger couples holding hands, a boy dashing past toward somewhere important. Mireille pauses. Kirika is probably setting up the tables. Her presence is expected right about now, with a day of honest work in front of them. She may comment pleasantly on the bland television show she watched yesterday.

Suddenly, the thought of work repels her. She walks on, heels clicking upon the pavement. The teahouse recedes into the distance.

She lets her purse dangle at her side, lets her arms swing naturally with her gait, angles her thoughts over the current question. The weather is cool and her clothing comfortable. She feels she can walk for a long time, the rest of the day if need be. Home seems a distant place.

Then she sighs a little, and her shoulders fall.

Somehow she can't be objective about it. This isn't a case to be solved. There's no one to kill. Well, not unless she takes up her old mantra of swearing vengeance on her parents' murderer, she thinks with humour dry as a leaf, turning her steps towards their customary spot.

But that's over and done with.

Mostly. Kirika still dreams of that day. On such nights she whimpers, tension written across her face, and wakes staring blankly ahead of her. She looks right through Mireille if she happens to be awake to see this; and she more often is than not, ever since she found out about these stricken attacks at dawn. Quite by accident, too, since Kirika would never have told hershe can be very stubborn. Endearing in her stubbornness, but still very, very foolish.

_She wouldn't have wanted me to worry,_ Mireille's conscience prompts her to tack on. _Which would be just like her._

Yes, just like small, determined Kirika, whose image surfaces effortlessly, immediately. The Kirika whom Mireille thinks she knows well up till the very instant she surprises her yet again. She stifles a chuckle, then sobers quickly and lengthens her stride to make up for the lapse. Her mind wanders regardless.

------

Mireille was studying her partner's body the day before yesterday, fascinated by the way its curves shone in the moonlight. Kirika looked like she was made for swift stealth missions, she said to herself, raking sleep-misted blue eyes over the bare back in front of her, after which one would vanish into the crowd and never be seen again. She was very good at her job. That job…. 

"What're you thinking of?"

_You_, she wanted to say. _Us, killing together._ Instead she scooted down and settled behind subtly-muscled shoulders. Kirika's distinct scent was mingled with the freshness of soap on newly laundered sheets.

She woke to the sensation of gentle fingers combing through her hair. "You're awake?" she wondered, smiling.

"I couldn't sleep," Kirika admitted. "Mireiyu..."

"Yes?"

"Do you think it's possible?"

"What is?"

"Us together, like this, always."

Kirika also has an uncanny ability to render her speechless. Gazing upon her petiteness, round eyes wide with an emotion half awake in their depths, Mireille was hit by an upswell of awe and something like fear. So like a child, she is, and yet.

"As long as we can," she promised.

"Thank you."

Then, how unlike a child, Kirika stole into her, took her breath away.

On times like these, when they clung to each other as if they were holding on to life itself, it seemed to her that they might reach beyond themselves and grasp at something greater. Kirika had tears in her eyes, and Mireille wanted to wipe them away until she realized she was crying herself.


	2. Life

_Disclaimer: Noir does not belong to me. Please do not sue.  
_

_Originally written for Yuletide's New Year's Resolutions Challenge 2005, then heavily revised. This was my first attempt, as a newbie at fanfic, to write multi-chapter. Reviews will be loved and faithfully read.  
__

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**CHAPTER TWO **

_Life_

The trouble is, there isn't really anything to reach for in the end. No matter how hard they might try, they will still be themselves, Yuumura Kirika and Mireille Bouquet, who were once Noir and are now no longer.

Mireille frowns. Some distance below, the river gushes by, the same as always.

She approaches the small terrace they have gazed over more than a dozen times. An ornate balustrade runs along the outer edge for a couple of lengths, after which it is replaced by a simpler but no less elegant wall. The place isn't crowded at this hour; just a few schoolgirls and a pair of tourists looking incongruously gleeful. She comes to a halt a few feet away from the others and plants her elbows on an empty stretch of rail, props her nose behind laced fingers. They come here on clear mornings before work and evenings once the washing is done and the utensils are in their proper places. Mireille likes the spot. Occasionally they get birds wheeling overhead.

For now, the sky is empty. Letting the light chatter fade into the background, she closes her eyes, allows an almost-black stillness to descend over her. The world is quieter in the darkness.

------

She tipped the kettle with practiced grace, letting a clear trickle drift over the bottom of the pale bowl. The pleasant aroma of steam arose, toying with the delicate scent of green tea. Mireille smiled and stepped back to admire her handiwork. "What do you think, Kirika?" 

There was no reply. "Kirika?"

She found the younger girl absorbed in staring at the modern stainless steel pot they were cooking the Japanese noodles in. There was a streak of sauce on her left cheek that extended nearly to the nose. Mireille crossed her arms and waited until Kirika tore her attention away from the culinary process. "These are almost ready," she said as she turned to Mireille, utterly serious.

Mireille broke into helpless laughter.

"What is it?"

Shoulders still shaking, Mireille brushed her thumb over the stained spot on Kirika's cheek. Kirika remained still, although her eyes widened, then swivelled to follow the movement. Some of the smear came away, but not all of it.

"There you go," Mireille said pleasantly, gaze latching onto hers. They stayed in place for five minutes, Mireille with her arm half-extended, neither quite able to move until the rattling of the pot alerted Kirika to her unfinished task and she left to turn off the gas.

Mireille stared at the ground, feeling curiously shaken. Then she, too, walked away to continue making the tea.

------

The afternoon sunlight floods in when she opens her eyes, temporarily blinding her. Blinking through a thin film of dust motes, Mireille reorients herself to the surroundings, and finds herself staring at the water again. Its surface looks impenetrable.

A clear breeze ripples along, ruffling the edge of her sleeve and bringing a minute smile to her lips behind the canopy of her fingers. She really does like the neighbourhood. It's just that something isn't right, like having an awry piece in a puzzle that throws the rest into disarray. Unlike before, she's a part of this jigsaw too.

These days she's taken to wondering whether Kirika feels as out of place as she does, here. But she hasn't asked, and it's hard to tell where Kirika is concerned. They don't talk about the past, much less compare the present with it. Once they were going to, but one thing or another got in the way.

It's all going to go away sooner or later, though. This she knows with a steely certainty that now thins her lips with resolution. Mireille drops her hands, peers over the rail briefly, then turns, putting her back against it. The dreams of gunshots that she herself has will diminish soon enough, and so will Kirika's harsher nightmares. There are just some things that refuse to be forgotten all at once. And it isn't Kirika's fault that she was brought up by Altena's faction and taught to kill with such proficiency.

She has killed; she understands. No one understands better than she does. Except for Chloe, maybe. But Chloe is dead. Now, leaving their weapons behind is the only way they can forsake the darkness.

This, she believes.

So she has her weaknesses. She's well aware of that. But being flawed doesn't mean she's wrong. The recent mistake was an exception.

The long hallways of the shooting range return to her with surprising clarity. Long hallways, and then a narrow space to herself, with an even narrower line along which to sight. The last time was three weeks ago. She told Kirika she was sourcing for supplies, for the teahouse. Just once, she promised without words, the first time. Just once. That morning, firing round after round into the assigned target, she felt the rented firearm shake, and her next shot was off the mark.

She grits her teeth, eyeing the sidewalk, recalling how she carried on, how the unexpected vision of Kirika looking on, brow furrowed, unexpectedly came to mind. The grooves and bumps in the weapon, already awkward in her hands, acquired an uncomfortable weight. It was easy to walk off after that, Mireille thinks to herself, glancing at her empty hands. She takes her handbag off the crook of an arm, winds her fingers through the loops.

Well, they shouldn't need an actual shooting range to begin with. The regularity of the place got on her nerves. And it does no good anyhow. She didn't enter the game expecting life to be easy. Living a fairy tale didn't rank high among her dreams, at least past a certain age. She is no princess waiting to be saved, even if Kirika might look cute on a horse

_How absurd. _Mireille peers over the parapet, notes the ripples stirring the unceasing water. She has been an assassin for most of her life, with an established system, dependable contacts, the works. By a strange quirk of fate, all of it means next to nothing now.

It might be nice if things were less complicated, but relationships are never simple, especially if one or both parties kill_ - killed_, she corrects absently - people for a living. Better to avoid them entirely, avoid entangling one's life with someone else's, avoid the consequences that arrived sooner or later.

Those years, living on her own in Paris, Mireille became used to the idea of solitude. It clung about her like a familiar cloak, and she could walk confidently into crowded streets and deserted boulevards alike and still wear a contented smile. It was her way. A killer had to maintain a certain distance, even from her few intimates. But Kirika came along, and as much as she wants to say they aren't in _that_ kind of relationship exactly, she can no longer not see the resemblances.

The comparison is unavoidable. There was a period where she temporarily shared her life with a couple of people. That stopped when the student she was dating was nearly killed by enemies of hers. Henceforth Mireille chose to work alone: less need to worry about someone dying.

Still, this is different. What they have is different from the uncertain weeks she spent with Adèle, Mathilde, Hélène, or even Julien.

------

Sometimes, at dawn, Kirika is overcome by a spasm of sorts, her youthful features twisting into a tortured mask. She makes strangled yelping noises, and Mireille thought she was having a fit the first time, until she saw her face. She knows that face. She sees a stranger in that face.

She put out her hand, then withdrew it. Clamping her lips closed, she lowered herself, tucking her arms down and around the trembling girl.

Eventually, she learned that her caresses can calm Kirika down.

Numerous times has she repeated the same act, solemn with the weight of ritual: drawing her fingers up to a pulse point, tracing vessels fragile as butterfly wings. Reaching the jugular's main artery and lingering, longing to press down into the heart of comprehension, she feels her pulse, throbbing with irrational force.

There, the gulf between them thins for an instant.

Kirika lies limp in her arms.

Her own heart battering at her throat, it often occurs to Mireille that what joins them may be an inevitable fate. But she doesn't relate these reflections, and Kirika wouldn't know of star-crossed lovers anyway. The memory of those pained eyes and the burden they bear keeps her away some nights.

------

Some would call it love. Mireille has never uttered the word.

Hands tightening on unyielding metal, she succumbs to the easy, romantic answer for a moment, lets it wash over her. The aftertaste, burning on her tongue, reminds her of Paris.

Love. The two of them in a bright spring morning, living, loving like ordinary people, playing young couplehood on neat chairs in the morning sun, serving their customers with newlyweds beams lighting up their faces. She would surprise Kirika at the cash register with a rose; soothe rumpled hair with a kiss. There would be involuntary smiles across the teahouse, sly caresses over the dishwasher, and after closing time, the quiet conversations only intimacy can give, the heater's dull whirring a peaceful counterpoint to the evening. The picture has a certain charm.

And why not? There is nothing keeping them from living like everyone else. Nothing but spirits of the past, pale ghosts that she is sure are going to disappear any second now. She has always been confident of this single fact. She hopes her faith was not misplaced. Maybe someday

The skin on the back of her neck prickles.

Mireille instinctively drops her weight onto one foot and spins in place, senses tingling.

A child, cap drooping over his head, takes off running down the path. She leaps into pursuit, flying over grass. As the fleeing figure looms nearer, she reaches into her purse. But her hands grope in vain; she exclaims in disgust and closes her fingers over her compact instead. Hurling it frisbee-style towards the boy, she gets him on the back of his thigh and the surprise causes him to lose his step. He drops to the ground, allowing her time to catch up.

To his credit, he scrambles to his feet almost immediately, staggering forwardonly to be held back by the scruff of his jacket which foresight has made her grab. Grunting, he tries to shrug out of the coarse material.

Mireille takes the opening to deliver a well-placed kick she's certain will not cause permanent harm. He falls again, and stays on the ground this time. She bends to retrieve a ladies' handbag from the inner lining of the jacket.

By now, a small crowd has gathered.

"Thank you for your help!"

Mireille turns to face the owner of the dulcet tones and is surprised to find it is the middle-aged woman whose cries for help she heard earlier. She proffers the bag with a smile. "It was no trouble. But this boy should be taught a lesson. Should he be brought to the police station?"

"I think he's received his lesson." There is a twinkle in the woman's eye as she takes the bag from Mireille. "He looks young, though. Maybe he has parents still living. Ah"

"Don't even think about it," Mireille quips, her hand already on the boy's arm.

He lunges. The cap slips, letting loose a ponytail of dark hair and narrowed, angry eyes. An unmistakably feminine face, snarled into a rictus of rage, glares up at the former assassin.

Mind abruptly blank, she loosens her grip.

The girl dashes into the crowd.

"Miss?"

Her head swims.

"Miss? Are you all right? It's okay. I don't think anything was taken."

_Only a child, and already... already... _Mireille shakes her head, summoning up a false smile, aware that her breathing is unsteady.

"I'm okay," she says, "I… I should be going."

* * *

_...and that concludes Part II of III._

_This section took so long because I realized that it was the middle part and hence very important. So I went back to rewrite almost everything I'd already written to make it smoother stylistically, based on reviews and what I think I actually do better at (probably). Not everyone will like the directions and implications, though._


	3. Shades

_Disclaimer: Noir does not belong to me. Please do not sue.  
_

_Originally written for Yuletide's New Year's Resolutions Challenge 2005, but rewritten for this site. Comments and feedback, positive or negative, are very welcome.__

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**CHAPTER THREE **

_Shades_

Mireille is barely conscious of the road she traverses next.

It is familiar underfoot. The light is vanishing, and a vague sense of hunger gnaws in her.

Yet the apartment whose door yields to the turnings of her key is quiet.

Mireille looks up at last, searches the darkness with blinking eyes. The shadows are empty. "I'm home," she exhales. Loathe to raise her voice, she adds softly, "Kirika?" Then it occurs to her that Kirika may not be home. She usually stays till late at night cleaning up, and since Mireille did not go to work today, their lone shop assistant probably needed the help...

"I'm sorry," she murmurs. The sound of her own voice inches her closer to reality; Mireille's dulled senses inform her that she is not as alone as she thought. She swaps her handbag for a penknife off a side table, then scans the living area rapidly.

Finding no one, she advances into the nearest room. A study of sorts, they also use it for storage purposes. The previous tenant left glass cabinets in. Kirika liked their twinkling glints, their jagged reflections, so they simply built around the original furnishings.

The door lies open. Kirika stands silhouetted before a cabinet in front of the room's only window. Her hands are raised. There is something in her spread palms.

Mireille can barely see the white T-shirt she has on, the black shorts. Her imagination shades in other details automatically: abundant black hair, unruly despite Mireille's best hairdressing efforts; extra tufts over the ears she insists on keeping and Mireille secretly likes; eyes, lowered thoughtfully; the old pensive look she's been wearing more often lately. She passes inside, stopping a metre away from Kirika's position. The Japanese girl doesn't react to her presence. For an assassin, such neglect was certain death; for them, nothing, not anymore. Mireille holds back, maintains her silence despite the sudden constriction in her chest.

_Kirika._

Mireille hid a gun in this cabinet back when she thought they would stop killing altogether. She told herself it might be useful someday.

Her vision dims. The penknife falls to the floor with a clatter.

Kirika's bleary outline stirs. Although she can't see them very well, the bright, yearning eyes she raises stab through Mireille's gut. Then Kirika lowers her gaze, and the pools disappear, bringing on a strange emptiness. Even Kirika's speech emerges strangely, weaving words through the curtain. "We did the wrong thing. It should have been this," she says.

Mireille moistens her lips just as a reluctant tear rolls down her cheek. "No," she whispers, husky-voiced. More loudly, she repeats herself. "No. Not yet."

Drawing in a breath of sorely needed air, she approaches Kirika. Her feet are heavy, her heels creaking as she moves through the oppressive silence. She stops a handspan away and puts up her hands, inching them closer to the cold glint of metal. Fingers hovering above the barrel, she sidles her gaze to meet her partner's. What she sees closes her throat so that she has to swallow to clear the lump.

For once, the assurance of speech fails her.

The simplest movement seems difficult. Abandoning her original idea of taking the gun, she barely manages to grip, circling thumb and forefinger about, two cold fingers welded to the even colder firearm. They feel frail and thin.

She lets go, then finally bows her head, breaks the unflinching eye contact. "Isn't it better like this?" she says slowly.

Outside the window, dimly present streetlamps dot the landscape, competing vainly with the simplicity of moonshine.

_What are we going to do now?_ Kirika said, a lifetime ago.

_We'll talk about it later,_ she replied. But there was the tea, and then they weren't in the mood for talk. Neither of them are very good at that kind of thing.

The weight of unspoken sorrow stirs a dull ache in the pit of her stomach. Kirika isn't saying anything.

"I really was thinking of not coming back." Without needing to look up, Mireille senses Kirika's eyes on her. "I wanted to know what brought us to this place. It seemed life would be simpler after we quit the business." She chuckles. "But I was wrong."

She knows Kirika will not speak. She waits anyway, before continuing. "Still, I came back. I thought of you, and I had to come home and see."

Kirika watches her steadily, unblinkingly. Her question comes quiet, slipping into the silence of the room: "Why?"

"Who knows. I was going to the teahouse, and then somehow I walked away."

"You weren't at home when I got back. I found this."

"How did you know?"

"I was looking at our things. I was trying to remember. I looked for a long time."

"Remember."

"Yes." Kirika looks down at the weapon. Momentarily, Mireille thinks of drawing away, but decides not to.

Kirika continues in a faraway voice. "We found out about our past. We were being controlled by the Soldats. We didn't want that, and that is why... that is why our hands are empty."

The loaded silence resumes as if it had never left. Mireille gropes for words in it, comes up with nothing.

"I saw that you were sad. However, I could not do anything to help."

"You knew. Is that why...?" She opens, closes her mouth. "I..."

"And then I saw that there had to be another way. But I still don't know if it is the right way."

The question is unnecessary, but it has to be asked. Regarding her from beneath lowered lashes, Mireille asks. "Are you thinking of ... going back?"

Kirika doesn't move, doesn't reply.

_Going back._ The resonance of her question floats in the air like a palpable presence. The implications: back where, back to what, bite into her calculations. Mireille pushes the excess meaning away, tries to forget what the gun really signifies, what Kirika meant when she said they should--

She curls her hand into a fist. "I will not take that risk. Not if ... it means our lives. The price is too great. No. Kirika, we weren't wrong."

She believes this. Perhaps Kirika can hear that in her tone; her profile shifts.

"I have been thinking, and I know it now. This is what I chose. If we had to do it all over again, I'd choose the same. Did you think I would really leave? You know, I like this place. I told you, I want to make the customers like the teahouse as much as we do." Mireille smiles faintly, bolstered by the confidence in her voice. A handspan away, Kirika lowers her hands and the object of her contemplation.

"Yes," Mireille nods. "It is true. We are not their Noir."

She looks away. "But..."

A pause.

"...You and I."

Unable to continue, she prays for her meaning to penetrate the distance somehow. "You and I..." What could she say?

Kirika steps nearer, padding just close enough for Mireille to see the glint of unshed tears. Without a word, she turns, deposits the gun on the corner table. It stands out vividly on the glazed surface.

"Mireiyu."

She sounds firmer than usual. Startled, Mireille scrutinizes Kirika's expression, but comes up with nothing of note.

"If you want to leave, I won't stop you. But because of me don't... don't do this because of me."

Mireille stiffens.

"Not because of me."

The memory of red almond eyes, narrowed into slits, glides across the forefront of her thoughts. Mireille slides her own eyes closed, hard enough that the light splinters behind the lids.

"For me," she finally says. "I'm doing this ... for me. I'm sorry. I was being selfish. It was never your fault." She reaches out without looking, captures the pale fingers whose location she will always know even without the benefit of sight.

Kirika makes a small, surprised noise.

Kirika! Please...

"No," she says again, for both their sakes. "We weren't wrong. This, I'm sure of."

Moisture trickling through tightly-shut eyes, Mireille slips her fingers along the insides of gun-calloused digits, clasping.

Their hands entangle.

In the next moment, Mireille relives the sensation of having the ground pulled out from under her feet. She falls silent. Perhaps her head droops. Movement flickers in her peripheral vision, colours shifting from one shade of grey to another. Something touches her hair. She lets herself fall, tumbling blithely with something very small in her grasp. Or is it more than that? The warmth is unexpected.

When she straightens, bewildered, Kirika is inches away, smiling a smile wiser and sadder than her years. There's a damp spot on Kirika's sweater where, she realizes, her head lay. She quirks her lips in response.

Kirika's mouth moves.

In the silence, Mireille begins to understand.

I'm glad you came back.

Me too, Kirika.

Slowly, she raises their entwined hands. She waits.

Kirika dips her head. Looking back up, she nods.

------

They first touched each other in the new apartment. It was two weeks after Kirika's convalescence. They had been lying side by side, not looking at each other until Kirika called her name, sounding inexplicably nervous. Mireille eyed her for a moment.

Her expression gentled. She reached out, curving her palm against the slope of Kirika's face. Kirika covered her knuckles with her own. They looked at each other.

Confronted with those deep pools of burgundy, Mireille could not but bend and brush her lips over Kirika's. She lingered. They paused again, inches apart, simply breathing the new air of closeness.

"I don't know what to do," the smaller girl admitted in a whisper.

"Well, we'll have to learn, won't we?" she joked. "We won't be the Noir maidens anymore."

There was a sharp intake of breath from Kirika; Mireille was caressing the slight peaks of her collarbone. She gave way to louder, more tortured sounds as Mireille went on to touch her as thoroughly as she knew how, and then she needed no further encouragement to teach the pleasure she had been taught.

For them, the process of exploration was slow, slower than either could wish. The layers they peeled away lay around them, shattered fragments of the past, and they, struggling, terribly young, would hold on together, joined by the same inexplicable longing.

---

* * *

_**fignae's note:** This was brought to you by the year 2004-05, pre-exam impatience, and the acknowledgement of the emptiness of language. Since the semantics of the ending scene have been changed between NYR 2005 and now, even though what I meant to convey essentially remained the same, I'll add that I prefer this second version. That one was more sappy; this more practical and true to the themes of the story. Where they go is up to them, to our sweet girls of Noir-that-once-was.  
_


End file.
